Microsoft Windows

Windows Server 2008 File Management

If you are looking for Open files in Windows Server 2008 you need to find Share and Storage Management. To start the tool, choose Start > Administrative Tools > Share and Storage Management, from there you can click on Manage Open Files(from the right most pane). Done.

-NS

“Windows 7″ is only Three Days Away!

Everyone ready to buy and install the latest and greatest Operating system since Windows XP? Based on the below stats(see insert), i think it is. I for one give Windows 7 a big thumbs up. I haven’t had this good of an experience with anything before retail as I have had with Windows 7 RC2. In fact, even though as an MSDN subscriber I am not going to install the latest copy of Windows 7, its just not needed at this point(for me personally). If you my readers can give me a few reasons why,(other than testing App-V; which I will most likely be able to download and install here anyways) then I might have to bite the bullet and start over once again. Its not like I haven’t re-installed my PC about a hundred times in the last 5 years! What is one more reload right?

Insert from Business Standard

“Microsoft, despite claims to the contrary, has not had much success with Vista which was launched in 2006. Analysts estimate that just one fifth of the world’s 1.2 billion computers use Vista. About four fifths use Windows XP (launched in 2001), introduced eight years ago, or even older Windows operating systems. XP is eight years old, but still runs on 70 per cent of all the Windows PCs across the globe. Microsoft will end active support for XP by 2014, and extended support by 2017.” Read the full story here.

Sysinternals Suite Updates

New Updates to the Sysinternals Suite

Process Monitor v2.7
This update to Process Monitor, a system monitoring utility, adds a new option to the process tree dialog that direct it to show just the timeline for displayed events, uses kernel-based thread profiling on Vista and higher for better performance, and includes a number of minor fixes and enhancements.

ProcDump v1.5
ProcDump now includes a new switch that enables the creation of a process dump upon process termination, which can help with troubleshooting unexpected process termination. It also fixes a bug where the -ma switch wouldn’t generate a full dump when combined with -r , the Windows 7-specific process reflection switch.

If you want to download these apps go to the Systinternals Live Site or go here for the whole updated package.

Posted in August that is Definitely worth a read.

Mark’s Blog: The Case of the Temporary Registry Profiles
In the latest post in Mark’s “Case of the Unexplained” series, he documents a perplexing case affecting many Microsoft and Citrix customers that Microsoft Customer Support Services solved with the use of Process Monitor’s boot logging and stack trace features.

Changing the RDP port on Windows Server 2008

I have always been able to change the port number with Windows Server 2003/XP/Vista by editing the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber

With Server 2008 however this does not seem to work. Does anyone know what else you need to do to make this work? See below!

On Server 2008, in addition to changing the registry key above, you also need to create a new Inbound TCP rule in your windows firewall to allow connections on your new port.  You can then disable the existing remote desktop inbound rule (which is hardcoded to port 3389)

For home systems, i usually disable the firewall anyways, but this may apply for Windows 7 installations as well.

-NS

Samsung N510 Netbook.

Finally a Netbook that will be able to play Hi-Definition video! With its 11.6″ screen and a resolution of 1366×768, this Netbook will surely become popular.

Samsung N510 specs include.

Intel Atom N280 1.67Ghz Processor with 1GB DDR2 Memory.

Nvidia’s Ion Chipset

160GB HDD

WiFi b/g/n

Bluetooth

wired ethernet

integrated webcam and microphone,

multi-format memory card reader

6-cell Li-Ion battery

Windows XP Home(Europe Release; its rumoured that it will ship with Windows 7 in North America.

Early reports state that the netbook will be worth about 420 pounds, or 864$ US. That’s quite a hefty pricetag, let’s hope the price drops quite a bit around the release date.

NS

Windows 7 and RDP Color Depth Setting

With Windows 7 comes Remote Desktop v6.1.7600.

I have seen a lot of posts where people want to reduce the color depth to 256 colors, which is not allowed via the Display Tab - Colors. Doing some research i found that if you have a “saved” rdp connection, you can open it in notepad and modify a specific field to allow you to run in 256 colors or 8-bit.  See below for the example text, the rest is easy

Here is an unmodified RDP File, i only included the first 4 lines, as that is all that is relevant.

screen mode id:i:1
desktopwidth:i:1152
desktopheight:i:864
session bpp:i:15

Notice the session bpp:i:15, change the 15 to an 8(as below) and save the file. Re-run the RDP connection and you will now be in 256 colors or 8-bit.

screen mode id:i:2
use multimon:i:0
desktopwidth:i:1152
desktopheight:i:864
session bpp:i:8

Windows 7 is almost here….

If you still haven’t tried it out, or watched videos of Windows 7, the real successor to Windows XP you should do so as soon as possible… CNET has an excellent article with embedded videos, here is an isert from the website.

“Luckily for Microsoft, Windows 7 is more than just spin. It’s stable, smooth, and highly polished, introducing new graphical features, a new taskbar that can compete handily with the Mac OS X dock, and device management and security enhancements that make it both easier to use and safer. Importantly, it won’t require the hardware upgrades that Vista demanded, partially because the hardware has caught up, and partially because Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make Windows 7 accessible to as many people as possible.”

Read the full story here, trust me its a great read.

NS

vSphere 4 and Windows Server 2008

Here is another quick one for you all…  When creating a Windows Server 2008 Virtual Machine, do not enable paravirtualization, I know you want to, but whilst using vSphere, you will not be able to install the PCI Memory Controller Interface(you will be prompted to find drivers for this device, if you enable paravirtualization in the virtual machine settings). Its is only supported by certain Operating systems… now if you are using Hyper-V enabling paravirtualization will work. Just an FYI.

NS

Installing Exchange 2003 on Windows Server 2008

Here’s the deal, Exchange 2003 will not work and cannot be installed on Server 2008, although if you have a Server 2008 Domain Controller, you can have an Exchange 2003 Forest. I hope that clears up some issues quicker then, say… Nathan installing Server 2008, attempting to fulfill the prerequisites of Exchange 2003 and not able to…

NS

Sysinternals Updates

There have been a lot of updates since i last blogged about this awesome set of tools, among those are updates to ProcDump, Autoruns, and PsLogList. The full details are here.

Another thing to mention is that Mark and David released the 5th Edition of their book, titled, “Windows Internals 5th Edition” You can check out the details herealso. Here is a small insert from their site.

Delve inside Windows architecture and internals:

• Understand how the core system and management mechanisms work—from the object manager to services to the registry
• Explore internal system data structures using tools like the kernel debugger
• Grasp the scheduler’s priority and CPU placement algorithms
• Go inside the Windows security model to see how it authorizes access to data
• Understand how Windows manages physical and virtual memory
• Tour the Windows networking stack from top to bottom— including APIs, protocol drivers, and network adapter drivers
• Troubleshoot file-system access problems and system boot problems
• Learn how to analyze crashes